Raw integers are also valid JSON according to the spec: https://www.json.org/json-en.html https://www.json.org/json-en.html json is defined as one element ele

Raw integers are also valid JSON according to the spec: https://www.json.org/json-en.html https://www.json.org/json-en.html json is defined as one element element is defines as ws (whitespace), value, ws value is defined as one of: object, array, string, number, "true", "false", "null" Wrapping in {} to make an object or in [] to make a list (which is also not an object) is not necessary to make a valid JSON document. This is also discussed in the Stack Overflow question linked.